Posted on 03/18/2010 7:55:56 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
It's a Stephen King novel come to life -- Toyotas are smashing into walls and doctors' offices and taking Prius owners on wild rides at 94 mph, even with the driver "standing on the brakes."
Except these tales tell us more about us -- the American media and the American public -- than they do about the cars.
Yes, Toyota has at least one problem in some models. Four people tragically died when their car's accelerator got stuck in a floor mat. There may prove to be other problems, too.
But the tall tales don't add up. In a Forbes.com piece, I exposed that Prius horror story: Almost everything driver James Sikes claimed was absurd, contradictory and perhaps physically impossible.
It was the "Balloon Boy in a Toyota." And, as with the original Balloon Boy, the media ate it up, because it was a great story. (The joke in newsrooms is that such a story is "too good to check.")
And the mass reports of sudden-acceleration incidents just don't add up. Measured by reports to the National Highway Safety Administration, these same Toyotas were actually safe just a few months ago. And overseas they still are. Why have they suddenly gone nuts? Or have they?
For most of 2009, the NHTSA got about one Toyota sudden-acceleration complaints a day. Then the automaker issued its September warning to customers that floor mats could trap accelerators -- and complaints suddenly jumped.
In November, Toyota announced a recall to fix sticky accelerators -- and complaints jumped again. And in February, federal regulators announced they were widening their probe to examine Toyota electronics -- whereupon complaints shot into outer space at more than 150 a day.
Clearly, the biggest cause of Toyota sudden-acceleration complaints is media coverage.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Well, No Shiite!
94 MPH is faster than even a trial lawyer can run.
Except if it actually happens to you or a family member.
A number of years ago my husband and I went for a test drive in a Dodge Caravan and the accelerator stuck. Luckily my husband was able to shift into neutral and pull into a parking lot. The car salesman from the dealership was with us and it scared us all. It was used but still, these things should not happen.
Hey, they can make any claims they’d like. The MSM will apply the appropriate fake video to back it up. And all those lawyers who were too dumb to even make into the house or senate will do the lawsuits.
—anyone with any amount of industrial experience realizes that about 90% of such claims (and employee “whistleblower” complaints) are false, malicious or both—
My brother's stuck accelerator story was in a Dodge Viper. Much scarrier with a stuck pedal and 500 hp.
Didn't Al Gore's coked up offspring get a ticket back in 2008 for going 106 MPH in a Prius on the San Diego Freeway?
Scary stuff.
No luck involved, anyone qualified to have a driver's license, should know how to shut down a vehicle that malfunctions like this.
I had this happen with a turbo Thunderbird, about 25 years ago (floored, 3rd gear, floor mat). I had the car in neutral, and turned off, within a second or two. I never went back to the car wash which had cleaned my mats, and reinstalled the driver side mat backwards.
Now that the U.S. government “owns” GM, all-out attacks on other manufacturers - espcially Toyota, which consistently makes the best cars in the world - can be expected, part of a concerted campaign by the Obama White House to promote his socialist agenda by furthering GM interests at all costs.
This whole Toyota thing is bogus.
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